Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1904 — AN HONORABLE RECORD [ARTICLE]

AN HONORABLE RECORD

Henry G. Davis Answers Effectively Some of the Early Campaign Slanders. When a man has come up through all the trials that beset the poor to a commanding position in the industrial world and no stigma has been cast upon his private or public record till he becomes a candidate for office, his record itself should be a sufficient answer to any slander that might emanate from the campaign. But in the case of Hon; Henry G. Davis, Democratic nominee for the vice presidency, we have a circumstantial denial from his own pen and one, too, that is a complete refutation of all that has been charged against him. The denial of Republican charges is made in a letter to a friend, and Mr. Davis not only shows that the charges are false, but demonstrates beyond doubt that they, could not possibly be true. The letter says: "I am glad to have your letter calling my attention to the publication placing me in an attitude of hostility to the laboring class. No one who knows me personally or is at all acquainted with the circumstances of my life, will put any credence in the statement to which you refer. I think I can well claim that I belong to the laboring class. For many years I w’orked in the ranks as a wage earner, and I know what it is to earn my living by the sweat of my brow. On the other hand, I have been a large employer of labor in railroads, coal mines, lumber mills, etc., and have never had any serious trouble with our men. I can recall but two Instances in which there ■were strikes, and these were of short duration and peaceably settled. No man has ever been discharged from our service because he was a union man or been evicted from a company's house for any reason. I think you will find that the conditions of the railroad man and the miner in connection with the enterprise I have directed will compare most favorably with those in other localities of the country. "I have always believed, and my conviction comes from the hard school of experience, that, measured hv the character of the work he does and«the cost of living a man is entitled to full compensation for his services. "I am charged with having instituted proceedings which led to an injunction against strikers by Judge Jackson of this state. The fact is, I had nothing to do with the case and knew nothing about the matter until I read of It In the newspapers. The injunction did not apply to the men in our employ or pertain to them in any way. Very truly yours. H. G. DAVIS.” With our own vast continent to be developed; with political and business corruption gnawing at our national life; with the gravest social and political internal problems pressing for solution; with the foundations of the constitution undermined by lawless unions on one side and lawless combines on the other; with law and order and prosperity threatened by labor wars; with the yeast of socialism and anarchy fermenting in the public mind; with 9,000,000 negroes to be educated and fitted into some sort of tolerable living relations with their white neighbors, you propose to divert the nation’s thought and energy from the duties that crowd upon It at home to a career of rowdy adventure abroad. —From Pulitzer’s letter to President Roosevelt. Among the visitors to Esopus during the week was George Foster Peabody, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. He said incidentally, that the first campaign contribution he received as treasurer was from an Episcopal clergyman over eighty years old. The clergyman wrote that, while he did not know whether he would live to vote ior Parker and Davis, he wanted to send a dollar bill, all he could afford, with the hope that the campaign fund would be made up of the dollars of a million voters, rather than the larger gifts of rich men. Amocg the salient features of the campaign, as it is seen today, is the action of the Parker Constitution club of New York, organized under very high auspices, many of whose members were supporters of McKinley, hut are now accentuating the demand for "Constitutionalism versus Imperialism.” This is but one of many signs of a rising tide of popular enthusiasm for a return to the historic principles and traditions which lie deeply imbedded in the aearts oi the American POOPI*